Tim Huelskamp isn't one of those Ph.D.s who advertises his degree by having everyone address him as doctor.

In fact, Huelskamp said jokingly that folks back home in his southwest Kansas district might be suspicious of him if they knew of his doctorate in political science. They might not want him representing them in the state Senate.

Huelskamp, a conservative Republican from Fowler and a former Catholic seminary student, is emerging after two sessions in the Legislature as a leader of conservative senators. He is credited for drafting the group's proposals on tax-relief issues.

Even colleagues outside the conservative caucus have noticed his propensity to read bills thoroughly and ask questions in committee.

"He's very energetic," said Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley, D-Topeka. "He spends a lot of time up here in the evenings."

At 29, Huelskamp is the Senate's youngest member. He won his seat in 1996, defeating an incumbent Republican who had the support of Gov. Bill Graves.

Sen. Stan Clark, R-Oakley, said other conservatives now looked to Huelskamp for information, in part because the young senator has proven adept at finding information on the Internet.

Sen. Janice Hardenburger, R-Haddam, another conservative, said, "He's very much attuned to the history of politics. He possesses an analytical mind."

Huelskamp grew up in Fowler, a town of about 600 people in Meade County. His grandparents arrived in southwest Kansas in 1925 and started with an 80-acre farm. Huelskamp, his father and his brother now farm nearly 1,300 acres.

Huelskamp can't remember when he wasn't interested in politics.

"It must have been when I was just starting to read, and we'd get the Sunday paper," he said. "I didn't read the comics or the sports. I read the first page."

Some of his formative political opinions came from watching his parents deal with the bureaucracy that accompanied federal farm programs. He said Democratic President Carter's refusal to sell grain to the former Soviet Union in 1980 made him a Republican because the decision hurt farm families.

And there was his first impression of Washington.

"I drove a pickup truck all the way there and didn't know a single soul in town," he said. "I woke up the next morning, turned on the radio, and it was 100 percent humidity outside; it was already 80 degrees. There had been, I believe, six shootings the night before."

After high school, Huelskamp thought about becoming a Catholic priest and enrolled in a seminary in Santa Fe, N.M. He keeps an oversized Bible on his desk in the Senate.

But after two years, he decided the priesthood wasn't for him, and he finished his coursework at a nearby liberal arts college. He received his bachelor's degree in social science education from the College of Santa Fe.

He worked for a year as an intern in New Mexico's budget division, then returned to Fowler. He applied for doctoral programs and received a scholarship to American University.

He considered teaching after receiving his doctorate but returned home to work on the farm.

"Tim never lost the country in him," Clark said. "In Fowler, Kansas, you don't call people by their titles."

Huelskamp's politics are conservative, favoring smaller government and opposing abortion.

During the 1996 primary, Graves campaigned for Huelskamp's opponent, then-Sen. Marian Reynolds, R-Dodge City, as did Attorney General Carla Stovall and Secretary of State Ron Thornburgh. Senate GOP leadership committees gave Reynolds $6,000. Huelskamp won the primary with 62 percent of the vote.

"Back home, they do not appreciate people from Topeka telling them what to do," he said. "They're generally fairly conservative."

Huelskamp can, in Hensley's words, "show some real passion" about issues. In meetings of the Senate Elections and Local Government Committee, he frequently raised questions about campaign finance and ethics bills.

"I will not vote on a bill unless I've read it," he said. "Unless I'm voting against it -- if I get halfway through it and it's so bad, there's no reason to read it."

Wendy McFarland, lobbyist for the American Civil Liberties Union, described Huelskamp as polite and kind.

"He is always willing to take my materials and phone calls," McFarland said. "I can't say that about every elected official."

Frequently in the Statehouse with Huelskamp are his wife of three years, Angela, and their 2-year-old adopted daughter, Natasha.

An active toddler, Natasha is a native of Haiti. The Huelskamps adopted Natasha in November because, in the senator's words, "Children are a gift from God, and there was an opportunity."